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Advocates say they helped prevent three ICE detainees from being flown out of Vermont
https://vtdigger.org/2025/07/16/advocates-say-they-helped-prevent-three-ice-detainees-from-being-flown-out-of-vermont/A spokesperson at American Airlines denied it was the company’s decision to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from boarding a flight with three women in their custody.
In what could be the first case in which activists have successfully intervened to stop immigrants in the custody of ICE from being flown out of Vermont, three women escorted by agency officials early Wednesday morning turned around, left the airport and were returned to the jail where they had been held for several days.
This surprising turn of events comes after activists have spent months tracking the transportation of immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport and asked local officials to intervene and discontinue cooperation with deportations that have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration. More than 57,800 people were held in ICE custody as of June 29, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization housed at New York’s Syracuse University.
A study the loose group of activists presented to the airport commission in early July showed at least 450 people detained by federal law enforcement in immigration cases have been transferred through Vermont’s largest airport since the start of January.
Lexington Kennedy, a 21-year-old Burlington resident, said they arrived at the airport together with another Burlington activist around 3:50 a.m. to observe the movement of ICE detainees through the airport.
Around 4:15 a.m., the two said they observed a white Sprinter van pull up to the airport with Department of Homeland Security license plates. Around 4:30 a.m. the van doors opened and three plain clothes officials emerged and took three women from the van into the airport. They were joined inside by a fourth plain clothes official, the two activists said.
This surprising turn of events comes after activists have spent months tracking the transportation of immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport and asked local officials to intervene and discontinue cooperation with deportations that have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration. More than 57,800 people were held in ICE custody as of June 29, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization housed at New York’s Syracuse University.
A study the loose group of activists presented to the airport commission in early July showed at least 450 people detained by federal law enforcement in immigration cases have been transferred through Vermont’s largest airport since the start of January.
Lexington Kennedy, a 21-year-old Burlington resident, said they arrived at the airport together with another Burlington activist around 3:50 a.m. to observe the movement of ICE detainees through the airport.
Around 4:15 a.m., the two said they observed a white Sprinter van pull up to the airport with Department of Homeland Security license plates. Around 4:30 a.m. the van doors opened and three plain clothes officials emerged and took three women from the van into the airport. They were joined inside by a fourth plain clothes official, the two activists said.
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